“There, cat. If you’ve sobered up after your funny little game of drop the mouse, we’ll be all ready to study after dinner.”
O’Ryan, tail straight up, in what might be interpreted as a cat’s version of a rude gesture, turned and stalked from the room.
CHAPTER 7
Homemade turkey soup and hot baking powder biscuits on a cold Massachusetts winter night are pure bliss. My aunt and I sat across the table from one another in our warm, cozy kitchen, while O’Ryan, still ignoring me, enjoyed some bits of leftover turkey from a new, bright red Christmas bowl.
“I can’t help thinking about the Sullivans and how sad their holiday turned out to be,” my aunt said.
“I know,” I said. “I was thinking about them, too. Trying to figure out how Bill got from the store to that park. Didn’t you say the police think somebody picked him up at Trumbull’s and drove him down there?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Just doesn’t ring true. If he left with someone, why didn’t he tell Junior he was leaving? Where are the tire tracks from the vehicle? An extra pair of footprints leaving the store?”
“Lots of unanswered questions,” she said. “And how did he get that broken leg?”
“Maybe O’Ryan was right. Maybe he fell or jumped or was pushed from someplace pretty high up.”
“Like the mouse?”
“Exactly like the mouse.”
“Mrrip,” said O’Ryan, sticking his pink tongue out at me.
“But where’s there a high-up place between the school and the park?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s a quandary,” she said. “I don’t know how much time the police can spend on it. After all, it’s not a serious crime to be drunk in a public park on Christmas night, no matter how you got there or how badly you ended up. Maybe we’ll never know what happened to his leg.”
“I’m afraid that’s true. I think they’ve about wrapped up the investigation at the school. There was still one officer looking around in the basement today, but the moving crew hadn’t even finished carrying all the mannequins up to Theater Arts when I left.”
“I hope they’ll be able to give the Sullivans some closure, or the questions will haunt them forever,” she said.
“Speaking of haunting, when you researched the ghost stories, did anything else interesting turn up in the old newspapers? River says that the ghost is Tabitha Trumbull. She says the witches know about something that happened to her in the attic.”
“Not really. Seems every few years some writer digs up the old ‘lady in white’ stories for a Halloween feature. But when I just search Trumbull’s, there’s miles of information.” She spread her arms wide apart. “Reams of it. After all, Trumbull’s was Salem’s main department store for nearly half a century. It would take quite a while to separate the anniversary sale press releases from the Trumbull obituaries and the nitty-gritty news stories.”
“I imagine it would.” I carried our bowls and plates to the dishwasher. “Thanks for trying.”
“No problem. That’s what I do. Research is my life.”
I laughed. “When I talked to River today, she said that bizarre is her life. Quite a difference.”
My aunt sounded thoughtful. “Not so much.”
“Thanks for checking out the ghost stories, anyway.”
“No problem. It was interesting. I found a few of those nitty-gritty things, too. Intriguing enough to make me want to check further.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I want to cross-check a few things before I can verify what I’ve seen so far, but it seems a few of the Trumbulls may have been on the wrong side of the law.”
“Sounds juicy. Want to give me a hint?”
She cocked her head to one side and looked thoughtful. “Well, bear in mind that it may be conjecture . . . even gossip . . . but—”
“Come on!” I had to laugh at the way she made me plead for information that I knew she was dying to tell me. “Give it up!”
“Hmmm. All right.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, as though someone might be listening. “Seems there was some bootlegging, back in the Prohibition days.”
I nodded. “Not unusual, I guess, for the times. They got caught, huh?”
“Somebody went to jail for it. Not any of the Trumbulls, though, even though it was pretty obvious that they were involved.”
“Interesting. Did you find anything else, Sherlock Holmes?”
“Not yet, but I’ll keep looking.” She sat back in her chair, a familiar self-satisfied look on her face.
“You’re good,” I said, meaning it. “Really good.”
I wished her good night, and with O’Ryan strolling along beside me, I started for my room and the planned study session. We passed through the living room, where the cat paused, giving a backward glance toward his mouse, which still leaned at an odd angle against the chair leg.
Was that the way they found Bill Sullivan? Leaning crookedly against a tree?
Once in my room, O’Ryan hopped onto the foot of the bed, turned around a couple of times, and positioned himself so he was facing my desk. I lifted the cover of the laptop, clicked on the lamp, picked up a pencil, a pink highlighter, and the yellow legal pad, and prepared to take notes. Read Chapter Seven, the screen commanded. I flipped the thick book open to the assigned pages. Basically, criminology involves figuring out why criminals behave as they do, and this chapter put forth the idea that our relationships and beliefs affect our behaviors, criminal or otherwise.
It was after midnight when I finished reading, highlighting, and note taking.
“That’s enough studying for one night,” I told the cat as I shut down the computer and stacked the books and papers. “I’ll join you on that nice comfortable bed in about two minutes.”
But sleep wouldn’t come. After much pillow punching, cover adjusting, turning from back to tummy, tummy to back, I gave up and turned on the bedside lamp. Random thoughts of Bill Sullivan tumbled through my head. Thoughts about how he’d wound up dead miles from where he’d started that cold Christmas night.
Too many unanswered questions. Is there criminal behavior here somewhere? But how? Where? And mostly, why?
Fully awake, I turned my radio to the golden oldies station, keeping the volume down low, and picked up The Official Nancy Drew Handbook. O’Ryan was awake, too, and had curled up on my lap, facing the open book. His big right paw shot out, and he turned a couple of pages gently, with claws sheathed.
“Okay, big boy,” I said. “Is that the one you think I should read?”
He stared at the page he’d selected for a few seconds, then closed his eyes, put his head on my shoulder, and went back to sleep.
He’d landed on a passage from one of my old Carolyn Keene favorites, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall. “‘I’m going to keep working on this case until all the pieces in the puzzle can be made to fit together . . .’”
Can a cat read? Even a witch’s cat? Of course not. The idea is preposterous. All the same, when I put the book aside, carefully moved a sleeping O’Ryan to the other side of the bed, and snuggled down beneath the covers, the tumbling thoughts had gone away and I felt relaxed, as though I’d come to an important decision.
CHAPTER 8
Things at the Tabby had settled down. The NO ADMITTANCE sign remained on the basement door, but since Bill Sullivan’s body had been found away from the building, official interest in the storage area had faded and Mr. Pennington had resumed his quest for extra funding to convert it to a sound and lighting studio.
Instructors, painters, workmen, and a few more early arriving students moved about the school as though they’d been choreographed. In fact, activity at the newly converted department store proved to be less confusing than the goings-on at the house on Winter Street. According to the head contractor, my aunt Ibby had a bad case of the “whileyas,” as in “Whileya have that wall opened up, why not put another fireplace there?” or “Whileya tiling the p
owder room, let’s put in a hot tub.” I’d found that my best option was just to stay away from the project.
The perimeters of my classroom had been established within the vast open space once occupied by Trumbull’s large shoe department. Without traditional walls, and with a full view of the elevator and the main staircase, my make-believe TV studio occupied much of the former retail space. Remnants of its previous use were evident in the typical shoe department chairs—too classic and comfortable to get rid of—and in a couple of display fixtures, which Director Pennington declared “fabulous kitsch” and “absolutely wonderful pop art” and “totally historic.”
I had no objection to the tin lithographed cutout of Buster Brown and his dog, Tige. In fact, I found it cute. But the giant half model of a shiny, black, high-heeled patent leather pump affixed to the wall presented a problem. Fortunately, it was located behind my desk, so I could avoid looking at it most of the time.
There was little news about Bill Sullivan in the paper. There was a brief notification that the medical examiner would release the body to the family “soon.” Pete didn’t volunteer any information about the investigation, and I knew better than to question him about police business.
Orientation week went well, and it appeared that the New Year’s Day grand opening of the Tabby would be all that Mr. Pennington had hoped for. The books for every class had been delivered on time. The heating and air-conditioning systems had been updated and were working perfectly. The electricians had rushed to finish their work. TV and radio spots ran as scheduled, and various local celebrities and politicians had been booked for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
With just a couple of days to go before the grand opening, I met another of my students. With platinum hair, stiletto-heeled boots, a leather miniskirt, and a faux leopard jacket stretched across a more than ample bosom, Primrose McDonald brought all the activity on the main floor to a halt when she sauntered through the glass front doors and strolled toward the staircase.
Every male eye in the place was focused on the blonde, and Rupert Pennington darn near fell down the stairs as he rushed to greet her. I stood at the entrance to the mezzanine level, too far away to hear what they said to each other, but after a few moments Pennington pointed in my direction. The woman turned and, with a grin and swaying hips, made her way toward me through a still-mesmerized audience.
“Hi there, Ms. Barrett,” she said. “I’m Primrose McDonald, and I’m here to learn what you can teach me.” Her handshake was firm; her smile genuine. I invited her to join me in my classroom area, which by then was outfitted with a facsimile news desk, three TV monitors, two studio cameras, a green screen, and some rudimentary sound equipment.
Her makeup was expertly applied, and her outfit, although extreme, was of excellent quality: her knee-high boots were expensive, and her jewelry was probably real. I guessed that she was older than I was, but by how much, I couldn’t tell.
“Have you had any TV experience, Miss McDonald?” I asked.
Her laugh was hearty. “Lord, no, honey, and please call me Primrose. I’ve done a little of what you might call stage and some movies you’ve never seen, but no TV.”
“Is there a particular area of television that interests you, Primrose?” I asked. “My lesson plan at this point is flexible. I’m going to try to concentrate on the things you and the others most want to learn.”
“Don’t laugh,” she said, “but I think I’d like to work behind the scenes. I’d like to write or direct.”
I tried not to look surprised. “I like those areas myself,” I said. “The assignment the school has just given me is for this class to produce a documentary about some aspect of Salem’s history. We need some serious writing and directing skills if we’re going to pull this off.”
I wasn’t kidding about the last-minute nature of the lesson plan. I’d been thinking along the lines of TV Production 101, but apparently, one of the major NEA grants the school had obtained required a history focus, and Mr. Pennington had pegged my class to deliver it.
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “By the way, last night I ran into a couple of kids who say they’re going to be my classmates.”
“Really? I haven’t even met all the students myself.”
“I was at a little bar. Greene’s Tavern. Cute bartender. Gay guy named Thom and a waitress who says she’s the owner’s daughter. Guess they’re both going to be in your class.”
“I’ve met Kelly Greene,” I said. “Don’t know Thom yet.”
“Cute kids.” She looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Kelly said there were cops all over the place here, investigating some guy who disappeared. Are they still around here? The cops, I mean.”
“No. They left,” I said. “They found the man’s body somewhere else.”
“That’s good,” she said.
What’s good? That they found a body ? Or that there aren’t any cops around ?
By the time orientation week came to a close, I’d met all six of my students. The three women had enrolled early in the week, and all the men had finally shown up late on the last day. Thom Lalonde, the bartender, was, as Primrose had observed, both cute and gay. Sammy Trout and Duke Martin had walked in together—a truly odd couple. Martin, looking as though he’d stepped out of an old John Wayne movie, complete with ten-gallon hat, neckerchief, and leather vest, stood at least six-foot-six. Sammy Trout, an ex-jockey who thought he might have a future in television, was nearly two feet shorter. I made a mental note to be sure to get a class picture of the entire group.
Therese, Primrose, and Sammy had opted to live in the freshly appointed dorm rooms on the Tabby’s third floor. Kelly lived at home with her father, in an apartment above Greene’s Tavern, and Thom lived with his parents in North Salem. Duke Martin was “staying with friends.”
After my quiet News Year’s Eve celebration—chocolate-covered strawberries and a champagne toast with my aunt at midnight—I arrived early for the big event. I thought that Mr. Pennington might be feeling overwhelmed, but I needn’t have worried. Everything looked fine, including the director, who was nattily dressed and downright jovial. His lectern, dust free, polished, and fitted with a microphone, had been placed on a raised platform at the head of the wide first-floor staircase. On the wall behind the speaker’s platform was a life-size oil painting of the store’s founder, Oliver Wendell Trumbull.
The superintendent of schools, the president of the historical society, and a recently elected representative from the city council posed with giant scissors behind a wide blue satin ribbon strung across the open glass doors. Reporters and photographers from the local and the Boston media roamed the place, and TV mobile units jockeyed for position in front of the Tabby. On one side of the grand staircase was an entrance to a small student theater, complete with a lighted marquee and framed vintage movie posters. On the other side a curvy, chrome-trimmed door led to a vintage diner–style cafeteria. Both the theater and the cafeteria had street entrances, allowing public access.
At precisely nine o’clock Rupert Pennington took his position at the lectern amid scattered applause. The student body—a hundred and twenty men and women—was crowded onto the main floor, along with another hundred or so invited guests. I and my fellow instructors sat in folding chairs behind the director. I surveyed the audience, looking for familiar faces, and quickly spotted my aunt and River North standing together in the front row. Duke Martin was easy to recognize, as he towered above everyone else. Some of the news cameras were already focused on handsome Thom Lalonde, who stood next to the staircase railing, in what was clearly a professional model’s pose. Pete had phoned earlier to wish me a Happy New Year and also to tell me he wouldn’t be at the ceremony, because “something came up.”
Mr. Pennington gave his sincere, sonorous, and long-winded welcome to the student body and the visiting dignitaries, his thanks to the many “little people” who’d worked “long and hard” to make this day come about, and then he intr
oduced each instructor. The city councilor, the historical society president, and the school superintendent, who all must have been suffering from numb arms after holding the giant scissors for half an hour, finally got the signal to cut the blue satin ribbon. The Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts was officially open.
A “meet and mingle” session with coffee and little cakes followed. Therese introduced me to her parents, a pleasant couple who were obviously clueless as to their daughter’s motives for attending the Tabby.
“We’re awfully pleased that Therese has chosen a career path,” Mrs. Della Monica gushed. “She is so excited about studying with you, and about staying in this marvelously historic city.”
I know she’s excited about staying in Salem. We’ll see about the studying soon enough.
Mr. and Mrs. Lalonde introduced themselves. Thom’s mother, with obvious pride, handed me a composite photo card of her son. “Thom is a model, you know,” she said. “He wants so much to get to New York City, get into TV, where they’ll truly appreciate such a handsome, hardworking boy.”
I murmured my appreciation for Thom’s looks and work ethic.
“He’s paying his own way through this school,” she continued. “He has a part-time job as a bartender, and he even cuts lawns, washes cars. Works day and night, weekends and holidays. He’ll do anything to achieve his goal.”
Mr. Lalonde didn’t speak but nodded his agreement with his wife’s proud pronouncements.
I was surprised to learn that all my students had already met one another. Each of them had discovered Greene’s Tavern during the past week, and they had all bonded so well that they’d spent New Year’s Eve together there. I was even more surprised to learn that Mr. Pennington was also an occasional patron. Greene’s Tavern was apparently thriving.
Tails, You Lose (A Witch City Mystery Book 2) Page 5